AS FAR AS I CAN SEE

A social climber is someone who still needs others more than they need him.

The future is where hope flies. The past is where reality sits.

Why do we desire freedom?

One answer is that we don’t, not all the time anyway, and some of us not at all.  There are prisoners who grow so comfortable with incarceration that, if released, they forfeit their freedom as soon as possible.  There are those who desire dictatorship, whether it be political, spiritual, or domestic.  And of course, it’s commonplace for people to addict themselves to self-destructive substances and patterns of behavior.

But put aside all the reasons for which people sacrifice, limit, or forfeit their freedom, and ask: what do we gain from having it?  What is its value?

In the political arena, if there is only one candidate, the freedom to vote seems pointless.  But even if its value is diminished, there is still some value there.  How so?  Because if we have the freedom to vote, we must necessarily have the freedom to refrain from voting.  We can choose to withhold our vote, and thereby add our voice to the tally of those who do not support the candidate.

But what is the value of that?  It cannot lie in the political consequence of our choice, because the candidate, being unopposed, will obviously win. 

The value therefore must reside, so to speak, closer to home.

And that is correct.  For the value of having choice is that, in choosing, we identify ourselves, and thus create what we are.  Be hanged, that Smith wins the election – I am anti-Smith.

Multiply such choices a million-fold, and you have a life.  Each choice is a brick, and out of the millions of bricks you build a house, and in that house you live.

Without freedom there is no identity.  Without freedom, there is no personality.  Without freedom, the houses are all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same.

Responsible preachers are like waiters serving food. We don’t really understand how it’s prepared and it’s not our job to make it taste good. If you want to learn more or complain, you’ll have to speak to the chef.

THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING YOU OWN IS YOUR REPUTATION: YOU PAID FOR IT WITH YOUR LIFE.

Part Two

As we acquire a language, while our ability to communicate becomes more sophisticated, the individuality of our emotional life is sacrificed.  Imagine a poet who is only allowed to use the twenty commonest words of her language.  The poetic urge would soon wither and eventually disappear.

Jesus also once said, I have things to tell you that you cannot yet bear. 

Our transformation into heavenly beings will involve acquiring a heavenly language, one accommodative to and encouraging of our uniqueness in our Father’s creation.  Unfettered by time, our communication will become Ent-like, our apprehensions exquisitely haiku.

Jesus also once said, Unless you become as little children, you cannot even see the kingdom of heaven.

Part One

Our transformation into heavenly beings is often thought of as involving the redirection of our emotional attitudes.  We will then love humility rather than power, find satisfaction in serving rather than being served, pleasure in divine companionship rather than worldly applause.  Our hunger will be after righteousness, God’s glory rather than our own.

And of course that’s true.  But the transformation will be still more profound.

A poet carefully studies the verse he’s been working on, then adds a comma.  He sits back, his poem completed.  He’s now content with what he’s done.

A man mopping a floor cleans the last corner, and then wrings his mop.  He stands back and surveys the room.  He’s now content with what he’s done.

What’s the difference in the contentment of the two men?  Is there a qualitative difference?  Perhaps an aesthetic difference?  The one result is art! we say.  The other’s merely a clean floor.   Yes, but between the experiences of contentment themselves, what’s the difference?  Not the difference between what they’re surveilling, but between the quality of the two experiences?

A woman tosses a ball out onto a lawn, then orders the dog crouched tensely at her side: Fetch! The dog springs away, then comes back carrying the ball, its tail wagging.  The woman pats the dog on the head and accepts the ball.

Another woman sitting on a lawn is feeling thirsty.  Please bring me an ice tea, she says to the maidservant standing nearby.  When the maid brings the drink, the woman accepts the glass and says, Thank you.

What’s the difference, from the two women’s points of view?  In both cases, an instruction or command has been obliged.   Is there some qualitative difference between the two, meaning a difference in the quality or nature of their satisfaction?

A concert pianist strikes the final chord of a Chopin prelude, and the audience in attendance stands and cheers.  A basketball player hits the winning basket from beyond the three point line, and the audience stands and cheers.  A war hero is introduced at a political convention, and the audience stands and cheers.

What’s the spiritual difference in the three cases?  And how do they differ from the first time her teacher congratulated the budding pianist, from the father cheering the toddler’s first basket in the driveway, from the soldier’s first victory over his playmates at hide-and-seek?

How does the fear of heights differ from the fear of snakes or the fear of failure or the fear of death?   How does loving a person differ from loving a movie?  Again, simply focused on the experienced fear, the experienced love, not their objects or circumstances?

Standing at a podium overlooking tens of thousands of enthralled soldiers in orderly ranks, a Hitler shouts calumny and fervid promises into a bank of microphones. 

Before a small congregation in a country church, I, an aged pastor, moisten the forehead of a baby while murmuring words of sacrament.

Strip away our eyes, ears, memories…everything except the spiritual sentience of our respective moments…and could you even distinguish between the two of us?

The appreciations of the gourmet and the gourmand are indistinguishable.  They differ in their objects, but not in their nature.  The menu of our emotional life, in whatever setting and however artfully flavored, offers very basic fare, common to rich and poor, to delicate and gross, to saints and sinners, common to all. 

Both natural and moral laws are of God’s legislation, and therefore teleological of His intention.  When you think of them in this way, the meaning of calamity and even cataclysm, of disease and mortality, and of sin, becomes clear: all that is destructible will be destroyed.

Faith is what reason is standing on while it asserts its own self-sufficiency.

Little children do not doubt their parents’ authority.  They do not question their parents’ wisdom.  They do not set themselves up as rivals to their parents in the courts of moral and practical adjudication.  They complain, sulk, resent and sometimes weep, but never with an accompanying demand or even desire for independence. Their love for and faith in and reliance upon their parents have yet to be contested by their love for and faith in and reliance upon themselves.

Unless you become as little children…

…as we have forgiven our debtors (or in Luke, for we also forgive our debtors) – this elaboration of the petition has always invited reflection.  Enjoined by Jesus of his followers during the ministry, it must be apprehended within the eternal illumination provided by the atonement: our sins are forgiven by grace through faith. 

So why this added allusion to reciprocity?  Most commentators have argued that forgiveness of others here shouldn’t be understood as a condition of our own forgiveness, but rather as evidence for it, the natural and evident outgrowth, so to say, of our true and sincere apprehension of the magnitude of our own debt, our own inability to pay, and of our gratitude to Christ.

Maybe so.

But as far as I can see, Jesus was instructing us to ask God daily for continued responsibility in our own spiritual growth.  Let our own freedom remain operative and efficacious, let us be participant with You in our own destiny.  Continue to treat us as maturing children, rather than obedient servants.

 The prayer for avoidance of temptation follows immediately because the Christian’s greatest vulnerability is to the siren song of green pastures, still waters.